Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 129

One of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, which St Athanasius said to pray when you can feel yourself climbing higher.

  • 8Verses
  • 1Situation

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. This is what he gave this one for.

You can feel yourself climbing: forgetting what's behind you and straining toward what's ahead.

When you sense yourself climbing higher in how you live, so that you can say with Paul, "forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead", you have the fifteen Songs of Ascents to say at every step forward.

Letter to Marcellinus

He gave all fifteen Songs of Ascents for this, Psalms 120 to 134.

8 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 129

Its own heading A song of ascents.

  1. 1Many a time they have persecuted me from my youth— let Israel now declare—
  2. 2many a time they have persecuted me from my youth, but they have not prevailed against me.
  3. 3The plowmen plowed over my back; they made their furrows long.
  4. 4The LORD is righteous; He has cut me from the cords of the wicked.
  5. 5May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame.
  6. 6May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow,
  7. 7unable to fill the hands of the reaper, or the arms of the binder of sheaves.
  8. 8May none who pass by say to them, “The blessing of the LORD be on you; we bless you in the name of the LORD.”

Psalm 129 is 128 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

When life is good, and you want to thank Him and grow

Close to this

All 53 situations, in one guide.

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Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.